title: The mnemonic advantage of processing fitness-relevant information.
abstract: Nairne, Thompson, and Pandeirada (2007) proposed that our memory systems serve an adaptive function and that they have evolved to help us remember fitness-relevant information. In a series of experiments, they demonstrated that processing words according to their survival relevance resulted in better retention than did rating them for pleasantness, personal relevance, or relevance to moving to a new house. The aim of the present study was to examine whether the advantage of survival processing could be replicated, using a control condition that was designed to match the survival processing task in arousal, novelty, and media exposure--the relevance to planning a bank heist. We found that survival processing nonetheless yielded better retention on both a recall (Experiment 1) and a recognition (Experiment 2) test. This mnemonic advantage of survival processing was also obtained when words were rated for their relevance to a character depicted in a video clip (Experiment 3). Our findings provide additional evidence that the mnemonic benefit of survival processing is a robust phenomenon, and they also support the utility of adopting a functional perspective in investigating memory.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130-4899, USA. seankang@wustl.edu
authors.forename: Sean H K
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Kathleen B
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: McDermott
authors.forename: Sophie M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Cohen
mesh_terms: D001143:Arousal; D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D011939:Mental Recall; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012718:Set, Psychology; D013534:Survival / Q000523:psychology*; D014706:Verbal Learning